


Q's Hacking Playlist

by voculae (northernMagic)



Series: Contrary to popular belief: drabbles from the workplace [15]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: 007 Fest, Angst, Computer Programming, Drabble, Drabble Sequence, Fluff, Headcanon, Inspired by Music, Kissing, M/M, Music, Names, Pining, Q before he is Q, Q's Name, outside perspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-05 00:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15158462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/northernMagic/pseuds/voculae
Summary: A series of standalone drabbles based on each song of a driving EDM and metal heavy playlist.13 - Complete.





	1. "The Bouncing Dot" by The Algorithm

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 007 Fest 2018. [YouTube playlist here.](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjEp4ymNxjUll77d5qXXnHSpSAevwqtaL)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The Bouncing Dot" by The Algorithm [(YouTube)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noxJz9nEt5Y) [(Spotify)](https://open.spotify.com/track/5hL92FFe947cjA2ANn3PMa?si=2iMrEpw6S2edLoNgaoB1dw)

Q was angry. He was orange hot coals, furious steam smoothly driving the well-oiled engine of his mind. He tuned out everything else curtly, ice in his words and a growl in his throat. There was only him and the network, narrowed down to a few log entries, a few tenuously shining connections. All was quiet as he watched and waited, his anger simmering. Ping by ping, node by node, the pattern revealed itself to him. Finally, he knew enough to unleash his vengeance. He was exacting, relentless, and merciless. He would allow no other outcome but 007, alive, home.


	2. "Binary Stars" by Widek, Gru

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Binary Stars" by Widek, Gru [(YouTube)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pFP_s5Q3dk) [(Spotify)](https://open.spotify.com/track/5coJQj6sVZUeT4TrusQnOT?si=P0GPLdakR7qWu-c_fJsyOw)

They could have stayed strangers.

He knew that 009 liked movie soundtracks. The old 004 had a cigar collection. The new one inherited it. He spoke briefly with them about those things, and little else. He gave them their equipment and they did their jobs, like quartermaster and agents. He made small talk with them, like strangers.

Why did Q spend four hours lecturing Bond about the nuances of progressive metal? Why did Bond want to know? When did they fall into each other's orbits, layers peeling off until Bond was in his branch, in his house, in his bed?


	3. "Black Room Boy" by Above & Beyond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Black Room Boy" by Above & Beyond ([YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66Ti9CwIWBo)) ([Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/3Ts6YoxfWC2gRtea9nPyTN?si=iYBZQpdKTC2gBopIM-yW0w))
> 
> For the 007 Fest 2018 general prompt table: Identity

"You're lying." Bond tossed out this observation as casually as he sipped his morning coffee. "That's not your name."

"I said 'I was born with the name Michael', not that it was my real name."

"Your parents gave you that name."

"They gave me little else," Q muttered, before adjusting his glasses and squinting balefully at Bond. "I'm known by many better names since then. I'm not going to stand here and argue with you about their legitimacy."

"Q." Bond watched the thrum of identity and recognition alight in his enigmatic quartermaster. "That's your name."

Q smiled. "I earned it."


	4. "Waiting" by Dash Berlin, Emma Hewitt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Waiting" by Dash Berlin, Emma Hewitt ([Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSgnf-tBN9s)) ([Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/5takcgOHIF8zOFYojf3Wvp?si=g_I-XyzhS2ijPRIoRdywTQ))
> 
> For the 007 Fest 2018 Anon Prompt: "00Q: an unthinking fervent kiss when it turns out one of them isn't actually dead/ seriously injured e.g. accident in Q branch"  
> and the general prompt table: Shock

"Did you see? 007 is back!"  
"Q doesn't look too happy to be seeing him again."  
Shock. "Haven't you ever seen them together?"  
"No, but Q once trapped me in a forty-five minute rant about how much he hates 007."  
A sound of delighted dissent. "Hate is one word for it."

Q stalked toward an uncommonly contrite Bond, trailing electric anger in a storm of hissing words-- and kept walking right up to him, until Q yanked Bond down by his shoulders and gave him a brutal, thorough kiss.

"Ah, that kind of hate. All the best to them, then."


	5. "You Got To Go - Seven Lions Remix" by Above & Beyond, Zoë Johnston, Seven Lions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "You Got To Go - Seven Lions Remix" by Above & Beyond, Zoë Johnston, Seven Lions ([YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apHm8CUz81w)) ([Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/2ZrVfOw8FXPEdwQB97b00j?si=XqKO8rvsTjerhlH_tKBqgg))
> 
> For 007 Fest 2018 general prompt table: Recruitment

His dismissal from his professorship had been both failure and relief. No more office politics. He'd tried to help. It was time to go.

He and his lab group had celebrated his last day by getting drunk and high. They'd unleashed hell from the school network. Every student at their sinkhole of a university had their loans paid with the president's own coffers. He'd hacked MI6 on a dare and left his CV. Campus security had kicked them out for being rowdy before he could install his safeguards on the MI6 smart building's network.

Seven years later, he became Q.


	6. "Still With Me - Seven Lions Remix" by Tritonal, Seven Lions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Still With Me - Seven Lions Remix" by Tritonal, Seven Lions ([YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBVIqTV0VNs)) ([Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/1uy0MBpwxwAmNXbQZ197hK?si=H9z-xZlxTIOm0WDMNKvfcA))
> 
> Take 2 on an 007 Fest Anon Prompt: "00Q: an unthinking fervent kiss when it turns out one of them isn't actually dead/ seriously injured e.g. accident in Q branch"

There was one time in Q's life when his mind was perfectly, crystal clear. 

There was something about believing 007 to be dead, disarming a bomb strapped to himself, and leaping off the roof of a thirty-four storey building that sharpened his life priorities. After that, there was only one possible outcome.

Kissing James was feeling his jangling nerves calm, his racing brain quiet, his heartbeat resonate with James's pulse everywhere they touched. His whole existence was focused on one purpose and one result: to savour James's presence with him, to rejoice that James found peace with him in return.


	7. "Endorphin" by Oliver Smith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Endorphin" by Oliver Smith ([YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHSJGDqtq2c)) ([Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/2vaPHvbRVkTPDrKVOcs47X?si=_FskKvafQLKI28lb275DhQ))
> 
> For the 007 Fest 2018 general prompt table: Curses

At first, Q thought it must have been a curse. Some sort of karmic balance for the night that changed his life. It was so cliche, a gay man falling for a straight asshole like Bond, like a sailor falling in love with the sea. Pitiful.

But with his heart racing and his mind anticipating Bond's decisions like they were in a choreographed dance -- lights out _now_ to get to the door, intercept communication and redirect the guards -- it was an exhilarating high.

It was worth every twist of his heart, every lonely night pining, to be needed by Bond.


	8. "The Seconds (feat. Jano)" by Porter Robinson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The Seconds (feat. Jano)" by Porter Robinson ([YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T16crBGDFAA)) ([Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/10IrQd0aMnPRvX4NLEmzLV?si=zDXzDFUeRb-R5OzKDE-0Vg))
> 
> For the 007 Fest 2018 general prompt table: Time Travel and Code

Q's superpower of choice would be time travel. For one thing, he could travel back in time and figure out what he meant to do with this chunk of code. He could travel to the future and gain intel for a mission. Information was Q's greatest weapon. 

He wouldn't have to wait until Bond returned. He wouldn't have to wait to see if Bond returned: the halting problem in its worst form.

But most of all, if Q could time travel, he wouldn't travel at all. He would stay in a single eternal moment with Bond, forever falling in love.


	9. "Holograms" by M83

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Holograms" by M83 ([YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_rG47vgGTE)) ([Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/738e4xzLmRkaY1qMDt3mh4?si=vcLIG8EiTJi_jC2P3fJzaw))
> 
> For the 007 Fest general prompt table: Diary
> 
> Look, I'm aware that the song doesn't match the drabble, but none of my electro-swing is particularly slow and tender and neither is this playlist.

Q's eclectic music library was a diary of the emotional strata of his life. Earliest, there was the austere, atonal violin and piano that he used to ward against his parents under a glamour of superior intellectualism. At school, there was the progressive metal he blasted during late nights, his nimble intellectual liberty crashing into the thundering darkness of self-doubt. When he made Quartermaster, his coding sprees were high on the wings of euphoric trance and EDM.

Tonight, he will add a playlist of slow, tender jazz standards, in the certainty that he and James would dance to them again.


	10. "Disarm Yourself - Protoculture Remix" by Dash Berlin, Emma Hewitt, Protoculture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Disarm Yourself - Protoculture Remix" by Dash Berlin, Emma Hewitt, Protoculture ([YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QcVq9S2zcY)) ([Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/3Y54b0B4FfuBOeIlKjypVB?si=oosXyfSoR-m0UglcTioPZA))  
> For the 007 Fest 2018 general prompt table: Ducks

The programming jargon should be utterly incomprehensible to Bond, but he grasps the structure of what Q is trying to do. Q has a talent for explaining complicated things in simple terms. Bond spares a moment to imagine Q in another life as a young and popular professor, and perhaps himself as a mature student just retired from the Navy, without so much darkness clinging to him. Someone worthy of approaching Q.

But he prefers Q here with him, talking to him as though he's more than a glorified rubber duck, involving him in Q's life. Q makes him worthy.


	11. "Bonsai" by ilan Bluestone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Bonsai" by ilan Bluestone ([YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSnZRpp83nc)) ([Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/3HMjEmoIHFRyR188BsJ5Ad?si=KEvgURXiTW2wym2NJWLmxA))

Every word was calculated to convey as much information in as little time as possible. Every line of code was compact and efficient. Every piece of his wardrobe fit to project a certain image. He had very little room for error in his work. He liked it that way.

Where he was order, Bond was chaos. Operating on a plan that was more prayer than premeditated thought, Bond forced Q to be creative, to work with the present rather than try to invent the future. Q didn't need to be the best anymore. He just needed to be good enough.


	12. "Destiny" by Andrew Bayer, ilan Bluestone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Destiny - Intro Mix" by Andrew Bayer, ilan Bluestone ([YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fLB0QdryGg)) ([Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/2d3xHE3K9p45Un1ax6kUcw?si=5ukmvE14TJiRdD1bXbkSWQ))

The moment froze, fractured into infinite shards of potential. He was on a precipice, over the endless sea of time, wondering how far the ripples would fly if he dared disturb the universe.

Each possibility was sharp-edged. He couldn't see past his own insecurity. Were his carefully collected deductions correct, or was he about to drown in shame and embarrassment?

But he wasn't the type to leave things up to fate, much less wait in vain for Bond to do something he wanted him to do. He asked the inevitable question.

"Would you like to have dinner with me, James?"


	13. "Satellite" by Above & Beyond, Oceanlab

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Satellite" by Above & Beyond, Oceanlab ([YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWLCMBKwVrY)) ([Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/29xhHp7I079jDveVcoShIk?si=7aqLydDkRfGolBVr90vBdw)) Also check out their acoustic version! Special thanks to Lin for prompting this double drabble.

"Talk to the man in the red jacket. 11 o'clock, 50 meters ahead, behind the market stall."

"I know, Q. There's a flashing marker above his head."

"You're playing the game with quest markers on?" Q sniffed derisively, a rush of static in Bond's ear.

"You're not always around to tell me what to do."

"You called me asking about this quest."

Bond laughed quietly as he followed Q's orders, then cursed. "He's attacking me and I can't kill him!"

"You shouldn't be able to. Just let him win for the quest to progress."

"if you say so, Q."

"3 more hours until extraction," Q added more softly. "You'll be home soon."

Bond let out a breath as his character fell. The screen faded to black, but then faded in with another scene in an unfamiliar area. Q was right.

Bond didn't believe in any deities, but he did believe in Q. His quartermaster could be relied upon to answer all his prayers, from swift rescue to providing an absorbing computer game to pass the time.

"Looking forward to it, Q."

He hoped that Q would answer his most fervent prayer, and agree to dinner with him upon his return.

**Author's Note:**

> I've retired from writing. Please refrain from leaving concrit on my works.
> 
> Feel free to remix this or any of my other works (with attribution) and drop a link back to me (voculae on Tumblr).


End file.
